


The Empty Graveyard

by mothicalcreatures (laelreenia)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 17:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7722721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laelreenia/pseuds/mothicalcreatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a graveyard behind the Xavier Institute, but no one's buried there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Empty Graveyard

**Author's Note:**

> This is roughly the same universe as [About Alex](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7051588)

There’s a graveyard out back behind the Xavier Institute. Six headstones in a neat row. But there are no bodies in this graveyard. No burials took place, no graves were dug. There were never any bodies to bury.

_"Darwin’s dead, Charles, and we can’t even bury him.”_

The first headstone bears the name Armando “Darwin” Muñoz, April 19, 1942 - July 3, 1962. He’d been so completely atomized that there wasn’t even dust. The same, it seemed, applied to the owner of the newest headstone in the graveyard, which was placed close enough to touch Armando's. Alexander “Havok” Summers, July 3, 1945 - May 8, 1983. One could have argued that there might have been ash left, but there had been no way to separate it from the rest of the ash and rubble.

The other four headstones have vaguely more left behind. Paper files. Medical files, complete with autopsy photos. Still no bodies to bury. Incinerated. The files say, was the end their bodies met. The files are kept locked in a cabinet in the lab of Dr. Henry McCoy. That cabinet is never opened.

Two of the headstones stand slightly apart from the other four. They’re more worn down than the others. Less cared for, made from cheaper stone. But then, headstones for Emma Frost “The White Queen”, died 1963 and Azazel, died 1963, would be, given the circumstances. They’re more cared for now than they were, now that someone’s at the mansion to care for them.

The last two headstones are designed identically to the first two. What’s become the standard headstone for dead students. Sean “Banshee” Cassidy, May 6, 1946 - 1963 and Angel “Tempest” Salvadore August 5, 1943 - 1963. The headstones don’t have specific death dates. The files with that information hadn’t been found when the headstones had been made.

_"Angel. Azazel. Emma. Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters - all dead!”_

The graveyard behind the Xavier Institute is empty, save for the headstones. There’s only one student that visits. I think you know who. Sometimes Jean will stand at the gate and watch him, or Warren and Kurt will observe from the roof, but none of them enter.

There are more teachers who visit, well, only one more then the number of students. Hank’s the one who’s kept the graveyard maintained all these years. Been the one who ordered the headstones so there was _something_ there. Do you know how hard it is to call a mother an ocean away to tell her that her seventeen-year-old son is never going to come home again and they can’t even send her his body because there’s no body to send. Hank does. He made that phone call after Sean died.

Raven’s the one who gives the two alienated headstones the attention they deserve. She’s the one who knew Emma and Azazel after all. She thinks Erik might have visited before he left, but she isn’t sure. Raven talks to Azazel’s headstone sometimes, tells him about Kurt. She knows she’s not the only one who talks to the headstones, she knows Scott does it to. Scott’s withdrawn a lot since Alex died. Sometimes she tries to listen to what he’s saying, but well, it’s not easy to eavesdrop from the opposite end of the graveyard.

_"Alex was closest to the blast."_

The graveyard is empty. There are no bodies. No coffins. Nothing but headstones and dirt and the living people who come to cry and talk and keep the names on the stones from being forgotten.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Birth and death dates are headcanons or fudged because I wrote this at 8am.


End file.
